Basin and custom house, view from west south west

Description Basin and custom house, view from west south west

Date 18/9/2001

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 790807

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of E 6465 CN

Scope and Content Customs House, Bowling Harbour, Forth & Clyde Canal, West Dunbartonshire, from west-south-west This shows the c.1800 Custom House with the railway swing bridge over the canal (right) and the Canal House Basin (foreground). The two-storeyed, basement and attic Custom House has been plastered and painted. The large metal-girder bridge is supported and turned on the hollow mass-concrete abutment (centre) which has been grooved to resemble stonework, and which contained hydraulic operating gear. The small bascule bridge (drawbridge) is shown in the background, below the swing bridge. The Customs House was originally the office where duty to the Crown would be paid on goods arriving on boats at Bowling Harbour from overseas. This building continued to operate as an office when the canal closed as the harbour and the two canal basins remained open to pleasure and working boats. The bridge would open to allow puffers and larger ships into or out of the canal. The Forth & Clyde Canal was built between 1768 and 1790. It could have been completed sooner but funds ran out in 1777 and more money was not found by the government until 1784. John Smeaton (1724-92) was the designer and first chief engineer for the project. He was replaced in 1777 by Robert Mackell (d.1779), and in 1785 Robert Whitworth (1734-99) took over the building of the final section of the canal from Glasgow. When the canal was completed in 1790 it ran from the River Forth at Grangemouth, in the east, to Bowling on the River Clyde in the west of Scotland. The canal was linked to Edinburgh when the Union Canal was opened in 1822. The Forth & Clyde Canal was closed in 1963 and the Union Canal in 1965 and the construction of new roads meant that it was impossible for boats to travel along the full length of these watercourses. However, the £84.5m Millennium Link project enabled the canals to reopen in 2002. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/790807

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap